SHIELD Academy: Ascend (Falling)
by Blueberry01120
Summary: Weakness had gotten him, and only Thor can be blamed for his current situation.
1. Chapter 1

Ascension 1. *** He listened to Thor's anecdotes as Thor always listens to Loki's***

He puts on his best grin for him and goes to approach the inhumanly beautiful boy he has just been left with.

Finally.

He has seen him from afar and watched him across crowded gala halls as he leaned on his arm and nodded along to whatever the pretentious old women were speaking to him about, and Thor found himself grinning at the lack of effort to hide his disinterest. If only he had the courage to do something as audacious though he is unwilling to risk the disappointment of his father.

He cannot disappoint his father.

Loki glances up from the large book in his hands, eyes impassive as he regards Thor, and Thor is unshy with his own scrutiny of the boy. He is what Thor has imagined a god to appear as, eyes sharp and full of knowledge, lips pursed into a firm line that spells out either mystery or trouble—or both, which Thor secretly hopes to be true—and a body so lithe that Thor wishes to take his hand and anchor him to the ground during strong winds.

If Thor touches his skin, he knows that it will be cold, and it only makes him want to share his warmth with this magnificent being.

To Thor's slight disappointment, he glances back down without betraying any of his judgments.

The girls at school swoon so easily when he approaches them like this, hands tucked in his pockets and a nonthreatening smirk on his face. They swoon so easily at anything he says from terribly unwitty things to simple observations about the world around him.

Loki would not laugh if he pointed out the clear skies and the star gazing opportunities. He would ignore him, or perhaps call out his obviousness.

Thor sits down beside him.

"What are you reading?"

Loki glances up though not at him, and Thor watches his jaw work. He tilts the book up. _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket_.

He decides that he is going to see if his theory holds truth. "The skies are fairly clear today," he says.

His first theory is the true one as Loki turns the page of his book, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear with thin fingers. Thor ponders what those strands would feel like in his own grasp.

"Many of the stars will be visible tonight."

Loki shuts his book and stands, giving Thor a cool look that both ignites a fire inside of him and makes him feel as though he has been thrown out into the winter air. He gives Thor another dismissive look before he turns and steps off of the sidewalk, moving through the idle cars like a snake.

He almost chases after him, but there is nowhere for Loki to hide forever. They are step-brothers now, and Thor has all of the time he needs to show this boy what he can do for him, what they can do for each other.

Loki and Thor, gods among men.

Thor does enjoy the view of him walking away though he hates knowing why he left.

2. *** "I am sorry if you have been informed otherwise, but Loki is still mine*"**

He tilts Loki's head onto his shoulder and runs a hand over Loki's hair. "Ich bin leider in dich verliebt," he says.

He looks up, furrowing his brow. "You know I don't speak German, correct?"

Thor sighs. "I know." He gives a bitter smile. "Just know that it… means the same thing."

It doesn't.

3. ***"Ich bin leider in dich verliebt."***

Thor opens the gate and walks in, feeling the leftover electric thrum inside his wrist.

"You're late," Loki says from his place on the stairs. He's covered in rain, a beautiful sight that makes something tug in Thor's chest.

"I had other plans," he replies, and he pulls Loki into the dry confines of the house. He puts his coat on over Loki's shoulders, seeing that his shirt is sticking to him from being soaked. "Why did you do this? You are going to get sick," he says, careful to keep his anger from his voice.

Loki looks away, and Thor wants to force him to look at him, to make him see what he has done. "I like the rain," he says, and the emptiness in his voice is unrighteous. Thor should be the angry one. Loki denounced him in front of his father of all people they needed to show their stability to!

"That doesn't permit your blatant disregard for your health," Thor says. "Learn to be less selfish though I know that's hard for you to understand."

"Thor, you're here," Banner says as he joins them. He is nothing more than an interloper with questionable intentions. "Loki, come here. I could help-"

"I have got him," Thor says as he holds Loki to him. "His problems are not your own."

No, Loki's problems are Thor's.

That is what comes with a… relationship.

4. ***"We can have a symbiotic relationship."***

"I didn't think that you'd care," he says. "You did agree with my assumption that you didn't love me, so I figured that you didn't really care. You've been with other people, so I think it's only fair-"

"Other people!?" Thor starts forward. The things he said… Thor cannot bear to digest them just yet.

Loki walks backward.

"_I_ have been with no one else, Loki, though people throw themselves at me from every angle! Do you know why? You have ruined me and any chance I have of finding happiness with anyone else! Does that satisfy you, Loki? Are you happy now? You wanted me for yourself." He smiles, pointing to himself. "Well, now look. You can have me."

Thor kisses him just to show him how much he has changed—not at all—and Loki pushes him away. "Thor, I can't! I can't do this! As much as you claim that, it doesn't make it true!"

"Why, Loki? Have you tired of me already?" He chuckles, feeling a jolt of guilt at the terrified look on Loki's face. "I should be the one accusing you of infidelity with your penchant for kissing other people. Professor Charles Xavier? Tony Stark? Gwen Stacy?" He looks behind Loki to where Erik Lensherr stands with his supposed beau Professor Xavier. "Loki, tell me. When you were on drugs, did your kissing turn into something more?"

He is going to punish himself for that one later, He knows that those… things only dared to lay their fingers on his skin, the safe zones where Thor would allow the unknowing person to touch without consequence, but Loki is ignorant of the lengths he went through to ensure that they would never do as much as form the thought of approaching him.

"I… Thor, I don't… I didn't… I didn't want to." He brings up a hand to his left bicep, and yes, Thor is going to pay for this. "I didn't want to, Thor. I didn't want them to."

"You're a liar, Loki," he says, and inside, he hears a voice laughing at how hypocritical his words are. "Why should I believe you?"

Why should Loki believe him?

5. ***"Weakness is a teenage boy"***

"Loki, are you-?"

"Yes," he says with a nervous smile, "I am."

Thor kisses him, and slowly, he presses into Loki's overwhelming heat and wet. He can barely continue with the sight of Loki struggling beneath him, but he does because this is what he's dreamt of. When he is fully sheathed inside of Loki, where he wishes he could stay for the rest of his days, he looks down at his tear-filled eyes.

"I'm so in love with you, you cannot fathom," he says, and Loki clenches down, Thor giving a moan at the almost too tight _Loki_ around him. "Loki…"

Loki sets his hands on his shoulders. "I'm in love with you too," he says. Those are words that Thor has imagined Loki saying to him, and at this moment, he has just broken Thor and repaired him at the same time. He will never fully recover from this boy, and Thor has no problem with that. "It's okay, Thor. You can fuck me now."

Thor grins. "No, Loki. I don't want to fuck you," he says, and he drinks him in with his eyes. "I want to make love to you."

6. ***"I'm so in love with you, you cannot fathom."***

"Thor, what are you-?"

"Oh shit, Team Thor in the hizz-house!" Tony shouts.

Thor grabs Loki's shoulders and kisses him as hard as he can, sucking the air from his lungs and returning it in the next breath. He stands with closed eyes and continues to kiss lips so familiar to Thor that he almost knows them as well as he knows his own. He's shoved backward.

"Thor!" his father shouts, and Nal feels the need to let his own rage be known with a snarl.

He turns to Titan with a smirk. "I am sorry if you have been informed otherwise, but Loki is still mine." He takes a step toward him, and the poor boy swallows. "If you dare touch him again, I will do much worse than break your nose."

No, Thor may murder him.

7. ***" In truth, I was the one to abandon you, and though you are unaware, I have already abandoned you."***

Thor knows weakness, and he of red hair and blue eyes that are unrelenting in their scrutiny. He looks at him with unconcealed lust, and his words of wisdom are spoken in an enchanting Mediterranean accent. He is a teenage boy of only 19.

He'd said it was a pleasure to meet him when Thor stood there, open and abandoned under an enclave in the city, some loud party music playing as he attempted to wait out the rain. His grin disarmed Thor though Thor had been disarmed by Loki's words two days before, and he'd shaken his hand which he hadn't offered.

"It is my pleasure as well," he replied as fingers ghosted the inside of his wrist.

"Well, you don't look pleasured." His grin twinkled in the gray light, and Thor remembered the grin of another, the beginnings of happiness he'd just stumbled upon fading.

Weakness had gotten him, and only Thor can be blamed for his current situation.


	2. Chapter 2

The Fall 1. ***' Not that it is any of your concern.'***

The space between them is not enough, but Thor cannot be bothered to move away. He will only notice and move toward him again, unrelenting in showing Thor just how he feels about him. Thor can both thank him and hate him for that. Throughout their relationship, he has been upfront about the feelings he harvests for Thor, and Thor has pretended that they do not matter.

They do, or he would have told Loki of his new friend two months ago.

"He's owes you much more than his life, Thor. He owes you love."

They enter his chosen coffee shop and seat themselves at their usual table situated in the corner. Hiding is unneeded with their location in the shops of SoHo, but he does it for Thor's benefit. Perhaps his care is a part of his disarming act, but it worked. It still would if Loki's own charms were not far stronger.

"He loves me."

"He does, hm? Then why does he not know of me?"

Thor grits his teeth and stares down in the brown of his tea. "Because I have not told him."

"And why is that, Thor? We are friends, are we not? As a friend, I think it normal for me to meet a person who has had such a big impact on your life." He sits down in the vacant seat beside Thor. "We are friends, right?"

Thor glances up at him. "Yes," he replies, "friends."

"Now I am starting to doubt that, Thor." His hand touches Thor's shoulder, and Thor should brush him off, but he does not. "We go to dinner. We meet almost every day. We discuss in-depth topics. We shop together, or I shop and you try what I pick out on. Most people do not do those things with friends."

Weakness is a persistent teenage boy who does not understand that he will never compare to the being that is Loki.

Loki, Thor's boyfriend and the love of his life. He knows this because he cannot imagine a life without his strange humor and biting words. He refuses to imagine such a life which is why _he_ is an escape from the decisions he must make soon. It is nothing more than procrastination.

"Thor, we are not just friends, are we?"

He gulps and looks up. "I-" He's cut off by his lips, ones that he's attempted to entertain kissing and ended up imagining another set of familiar lips in their place. This is exactly as he thought it would be, something passionate though not on Thor's end. Thor simply sits there and lets him press against him with desperation.

He opens his eyes and pushes him away.

"I do not return your feelings, and I never will," he says as he stands, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair, "Zeus."

Zeus frowns. "What does he have that I do not?"

Thor zips his jacket. "My love."

2. ***"Once you make this decision, you cannot take it back."***

Thor stares him in the eye, hand falling from his arm. Perhaps the last touch he will have of Loki.

He desires to run far from this, but Thor has been a coward for far too long. He owes Loki this much, owes him much more, but this is all he can give him now. The truth that shall grant Loki the freedom from Thor he does not know he needs.

"There was someone else."

Loki simply stares back, mouth agape, and the absence of anything in his eyes makes Thor's heart clench in knowing. Thoughts and conclusions are forming behind those eyes, and he can only futilely attempt an explanation.

"After you… renounced me, I met someone. I made my intentions of remaining his friend clear, but I also knew that he desired more of me. Throughout the month, we met under the guise of a platonic camaraderie, but we were both aware that we were lying to ourselves." He exhales, pushing himself to continue. "When he kissed me, I… I did not immediately push him away."

"When he kissed you?" Loki bares his teeth, and Thor sees that Loki truly cares. "Just when did he kiss you?"

Such care will do him no good in the coming days. He must deliver the final blows. "Three weeks ago."

Loki's hand is drawn across his face, and it does not physically sting, but emotionally it is as if he has been flogged with an iron bar. He cares so much, and as much as that relieves Thor, it only means that Thor's decision is even more justified.

"Why are you telling me this now?" he asks. "Why now?"

Because Thor _has_ to do this. He has to do it for Loki whether Loki does not see it yet. "I meant to tell you after it happened, but other forces prevented me from doing so."

"Other forces? Really, Thor, tell me why? You owe that much to me!"

"Loki, I love you." He does. Oh gods does he love this boy. He would do no such thing for any other.

"And love somehow makes your infidelity okay? What happened to you, Thor? I thought you were different than anyone in this world, but you are merely a man." He jabs a finger into Thor's chest, and Thor's heart slows down. "You made me fall in love with you. You made me doubt my own feelings for what? Why have you done this?"

The words he says are filled with hate, and Thor can hardly bare to not beg for his forgiveness as he so desperately wants to. He has been selfish enough.

He clenches his fists. "It was only a kiss."

"Is that supposed to lessen the blow? I could care less if it was only a kiss, Thor! You waited this long to tell me, so it had to be some kiss, correct? It meant something as much as you deny it didn't." Loki shakes his head. "It makes sense now. You've… been acting guilty because you are guilty!"

He follows Loki when he slips from the car. He knows that he will fail, but a part of him wishes to succeed as he always has, the part that ignores the inevitable farewell and the effect it will have on Loki.

Loki is the love of his life but not this life.


End file.
